End of the Line
by Soulseekerthe13th
Summary: This is an excerpt from Chapter 3 of my novel, for review by the literary community. My editor has yet to see this part, which I added in recently, so consider yourselves lucky and enjoy!   Rated T for depression, which may be a side effect of reading it


_ It all started when they grey-eyed man knocked on the door. Charn shouldn't have answered it, but he did. Looking back, he had no idea why he did so. He couldn't think of a single reason why he shambled towards the iron cabin door at 3:00 Am, and turned the handle. There was heavy rain outside, pattering loudly on the boat's deck. The man was standing there, his tattered blue suit soaked by the heavy rain. His black hair was plastered over his face, obscuring his pale-grey, almost pupil-less eyes. His thin lips and pale tongue moved at a rapid pace, not allowing the words that followed them to keep up._

_"Mayor Fratz requires that you install this vending machine on your property."_

"_HMMPH?" asked Charn, tired and confused._

"_The new legislative proposition is that all areas of residence must contain machines of vending on their premises in order to benefit the economy. ."_

"_O-kay…" said Charn groggily. As he signed, he was shocked into waking. The pen that the man had handed him was only a few degrees above freezing. Before he could inquire further, the man pushed the tarp-covered machine through the hatch and handed him a book of instructions. Suddenly, a glaring white light began to emanate from somewhere behind the man, and his silhouette vanished into nothingness. Charn slowly ambled off to his room and fell back asleep._

_ The next morning, Stel was the first up. After breakfast, he walked briskly to the door of the cabin, in order to get some fresh air. Upon seeing the tarp-covered object, he yelled for Charn, demanding to know what, exactly, was going on. While Charn was desperately trying to defend himself against interrogation, the tarp fell from the Vending Machine. They stepped back quickly and gazed upon it with a combination of horror and admiration. It looked like a malevolent iron box, with a long, smooth silver handle protruding from one side, and a thin glass window, the sort of things one might find one a slot machine. There was a large metal clasp on the top, as if the front might open downwards. It was not very tall, so both of them could easily see the book of instructions on top. The book was bound in mottled black leather, and embossed in gold on the cover was the title: _

"_The Vending Machine of Souls." _

_ Charn looked to Stel, who nodded gravely. Charn slowly opened the book, releasing a cloud of dust. The first page was in flowing, archaic script. It read: __Pull the Lever. __On the bottom of the brittle page was a chart._

_ Stelon, falteringly, placed his hands on the cold silver handle and a chill ran up his spine. Against his better judgment, he pulled. Eerie carnival music played as the cylinder behind the window spun with incredible speed. Suddenly, it stopped, and it now read: __Ashes to Ashes. __Nothing happened. They waited another minute. The vending Machine of Souls remained silent and unmoving. After what seemed eons of silence, the door behind them swung open. Both boys jumped and spun around simultaneously._

"_Umm… guys…what's going on in here?" Stephanie asked as she walked into the room, her long dark coat trailing behind her. The boys briefly explained the situation to her. She approached the Vending Machine of Souls slowly and deliberately; at the same time producing a wobbegong's tooth from one of her many pockets. She rolled it thrice between her palms and hurled it at the metal box, piercing it directly bellow its window. The tooth began to hum and vibrate until it became deafening, and the trio sank to the floor. Almost immediately, the tooth crumbled into glowing ash. There wasn't a dent on the machine._

"_Woah…" Stephanie said, standing up. "Whoever built this Machine as worked into it incredible magical power. I've never seen so much manipulation flux in one object…"_

_Charn had by now become even more interested. "But why a Vending Machine?" he wondered._

"_Well…" said Stephanie, "Let's find out." _

_Stephanie walked up to the Vending Machine of Souls and quickly pulled the lever. The trio sat in silence as the cylinder spun around and around, filling the room with eerie music. Then, it stopped once more, this time reading: __Dust to Gossamer__. With a whirr and a hiss, the front of the vending machine swung downward, revealing a small glass pedestal, upon which rested a smaller still burlap bag. On it was clearly printed: __**GRAB BAG O' DREAMS.

* * *

**_

In his own possibility, our Charn slowly rotated the crystal once more. He wanted to try and experiment. He fixed Stephanie's image firmly in his mind and rotated to the next facet. This is what he saw:

* * *

_Stephanie was taking the train. It moved at a moderate pace, allowing all of the passengers to enjoy the view without sacrificing the efficiency of the transportation. Now however, they view had become rather morose. Looking out of the window, one could see nothing but dead trees and the crumbled ruins of once glorious manors. Stephanie walked somberly into the dining car for lunch. The trip had been going for 9 days, and it was still not complete. She had had no conversation throughout the trip, because as the others on the train looked human, they were faceless. Where their faces should have been, there was nothing but a blank slate, shaded in as if by a pencil. The man whom with she sat wore an old Victorian coat, and had a cut on the side of his face-slate, which was bleeding ink into his soup. He gazed pensively into the bowl, watching the drifting bits of cucumber, coated in ink from his "face." Looking into her own soup, Stephanie soon heard an interesting sound, and looked up to find that the faceless man was singing softly to himself._

"_Way down in eldritch depths our intrepid heroes fell,_

_and now their successors are trying to quell_

_the flood of nightmares that know us all too well…_

_They know that we're no longer at the head of the table…"_

_It was a haunting tune, accentuated in the cold, dark tones in which the faceless man spoke._

"_That was simply beautiful…" Stephanie said to the man._

_The man looked up, startled, as if he had not known that she was there. _

"_Thank you." He said. He then stood up, slipped a piece of torn parchment into her hand, and made his way to his room._

_ The parchment contained the remnants of a poem, most of the writing lost to the ages. All that remained were the following words:_

" …_my son…BEWARE...vor…sword…Jabber…k…outgrabe…"_

_Stephanie stood up and returned to her room, leaving the cucumber soup on the table untouched._

Noticing Charn's puzzlement after he had withdrawn from the second facet, Necron began to explain how the spy-crystal worked.

"You see, there are multiple spy-crystals, and, through clever time-manipulation, we've managed to place one in quite a few possibilities. Every crystal is connected to every other one, so by gazing into one, you can gaze out of another. We've managed to place them in intersections and hallways most of the time, so that you can see exactly what is happening, but sometimes you just can't see anything at all."

As he went back to speak to Metranoma, Charn gazed into the crystal once more.


End file.
